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The rich history of the Middle East is well-documented, so there is little the authors need to add by way of discouraging you from visiting there.
The Banana Republic or Ruritania of the Middle East, named for the fictional country that causes so much trouble in The DCU.
There are two overlapping versions: the Arabian Nights version has a gobsmackingly rich Sultan, smoky harem tents full of doe-eyed concubines to be put at the disposal of the Honoured Effendi, and of course, oil. The genies and flying carpets are optional.
The other version has a tinpot dictator whose pretentious title rivals his domain in size. His army will probably be equipped with rusting Soviet surplus and either aided or opposed by a lot of big-bearded nutters shouting "Jihad!". Oil is optional, America-hating terrorists a must. The less sensitive renditions of this can hurtle straight through Unfortunate Implications and into Acceptable Targets.
Whichever version you're in, expect Mosques, veils, scampering children demanding Baksheesh, heat, sand, and camels. If you don't like Hummus, you'd better bring your own food.
Note that such a country is only Qurac if it's on Earth. Middle Eastern countries on other worlds are Fantasy Counterpart Cultures.
On a side note, Qatar is the only (real) country in the world that has a name starting with "Q".
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- Anime example: Area88 is set in the fictional Middle-Eastern nation of Aslan, following the exploits of a foreign legion of mercenary fighter pilots during a civil war.
- Mireille and Kirika of Noir have at least one mission in an unnamed Mideastern nation.
- Belgistan in Gasaraki.
- Borderline: Full Metal Panic!'s anime features the fictional country of Helmajistan, which was a bowdlerization — the novels use Afghanistan instead.
- Also an anime example: Azadestan in Gundam 00.
- Azadistan is quite obviously Iran/Persia, from its location to its name (آزادستان, Persian for "land of freedom"). Gundam 00 also features a short-lived, war-torn Kurdish Republic on Azadistan's border.
- Which is based on Kurdistan which isn't officially recognized.
- Area 18, the unspecified Middle Eastern territory from Code Geass, could qualify. It was on screen for such little time, though, that not much was shown aside from its desert location and stereotypically-dressed natives.
- It was named "The Middle-Eastern Federation" (and the characters actually call it this, at least in the subbed version) prior to its conquest by The Holy Empire of Britiannia. Presumably it was a composite of many otherwise real modern nations of the region.
- Also, it apparently had ideals involving equality and democracy, or at least the Emperor berated them and the EU in the same sentence for trying to pretend that all men are created equal, when class-system is clearly the right way to go.
- Planetes has Mananga, an oil-producing desert country torn by civil war. Hmmm.
Comic Books
- Qurac isn't the only Qurac in The DCU — there's Umar (a thinly-veiled Iraq, complete with America-instigated war, which was particularly pointless since Qurac was already meant to be an Iraq stand-in), Kahndaq (a more liberalized Egypt, ruled by Pharaonic Anti Hero Black Adam), and Bialya (a secular, vaguely Turkish nation) as well.
- Meanwhile, the Marvel Universe has a Qurac in the form of Aqiria, the original home of the supervillain Fasaud. It receives much less page-time than European Latveria or African Wakanda.
- That's cause no one's heard of this "Fasaud".
- Khemed in The Adventures of Tintin is a Qurac invented to re-set scenes in Palestine once these scenes were no longer topical.
- Afbagistan is the fictional setting of Rick Veitch's scabrous War On Terror satire Army@Love
- Trucial Abysmia appeared in several issues of Marvel's GI Joe comics. As indicated in G.I.Joe Special Missions #18, it is located on the eastern coast of North Africa. It represents Middle-Eastern dictator-ruled countries in the region.
Film
- Ben Hur had a few scenes of Arabia during Biblical Times / Ancient Rome time. Of particular note was Ilderim, a lusty, swaggering sheik who gleefully raised Arabian horses and cleverly mocked the Roman soldiers. It's his chariot that Heston is driving in the famous Chariot Race scene.
- Turaqistan, from War, Inc., is a Middle Eastern country occupied by an American private corporation run by a former US Vice-President.
Literature
- H. G. Wells has two short stories taking place in the middle east or Muslim Asia, one being an Arabian Nights-period morality tale with a premise clearly inspired by the story of the Taj Mahal, and the other being a bait-and-switch tale taking place in what at the time of writing was probably the perception of the "contemporary" Muslim world (possibly the Himalayas).
- Cat Among the Pigeons involves a hunt for royal jewels from the country of Ramat.
Live Action TV
- A long-running arc on The West Wing involved the fictional country of Qumar, noted for its strategically useful location for US military interests, its cruel treatment of women ("The Women of Qumar"), and the fact that the President ordered the assassination of its secretary of defense ("Posse Comitatus"), which eventually prompted the retaliatory kidnapping of his daughter ("Twenty Five").
- Qumar's relationship to the US is modeled closely on Saudi Arabia's, as are its human rights issues. Brief glimpses of maps in the situation room show Qumar is a small nation north of the Strait of Hormuz, bordered on all other sides by Iran.
- And ironically, despite having two fictional countries on the books, the series mocks a fictional Republican representative for not knowing that Freedonia (of Marx Brothers fame) is a Ruritania
- In Yes Minister, Jim Hacker visits Qumran
 , a fictional Muslim country based on Pakistan — in fact, the scene where Hacker and his staff secretly consume alcohol was based on a real-life incident that happened on a British diplomatic visit to Pakistan.
- On another occasion a British nurse was sentenced to several lashes for possessing a bottle of whiskey, which provokes a miniature crisis as the government does not want to push too hard as the Qumrani's are described as great friends of Britain, letting them know what the Soviets were up to in Iraq, allowing listening posts to be set up for Britain's use, and even sabotaging Opec agreements for them.
- Another possible Qurac in Yes Minister is "The People's Democratic Republic of East Yemen". In reality Yemen was divided into the communist People's Republic of South Yemen and North Yemen (first the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen and then the Yemen Arab Republic).
- Several of 24's Big Bads have come from Qurac. The show has also featured America attempting to start war on Qurac and its neighbours several times.
- The second season was particularly egregious, only referring to the respective Quracs as "three Middle Eastern countries." Names for the countries on T Wo P ranged from "Isn'treal" to "Tofurkey."
- Although many missions took place in Ruritania or the Banana Republic, Mission Impossible did venture into Qurac from time to time.
Video Games
- Video Game Example: The Full Spectrum Warrior games use Zekistan, a Qurac setting for modern desert combat that lacks the real-world political aspects of Afghanistan or Iraq.
- Sonic The Hedgehog's adventures in the 1001 Nights, as seen in Sonic and the Secret Rings.
- Earlier, Sonic 2 put a more modern and technological twist on the concept with the Oil Ocean zone.
- The Neopets world of The Lost Desert is another Middle East mixup, as well as Egypt.
- Call Of Duty 4 uses a nameless Middle Eastern country taken over by a violent, nuclear-armed and militarily aggressive regime as the setting for the first third of the game. The actual location of the country isn't made clear, as the pre-mission satellite photos jump from areas along the Red Sea suggesting Yemen, to the interior of Iran to the epicenter of a nuclear bomb's explosion in Kuwait. It also doesn't help that the country is described as being small, which doesn't make sense if it stretches from the Red sea to the River Euphrates.
- The first Act of Metal Gear Metal Gear Solid 4 takes place in a war-torn desert country identified simply as "The Middle East". The "Moroccan Research Team" mentioned in the game's credits gives a clue as to which country this fictional place is based on.
- Air Combat Patrol\Desert Fighter has you fighting in Zaraq, against the Zaraqis, in 1991, where the dictator bears an uncanny resemblence to a Middle Eastern leader captured and executed in 2003. On a topical sidenote, if you do not play the game blankety blank blanking bleeper blanking bleeper blanking PERFECTLY, the war in one way or another will become another Vietnam.
- Not one but two Quracs feature in Strike Fighters, both as primary protagonist (USA-supported Dhimar—an Iraq) and antagonist (USSR-supported Paran—an Iran) states.
- Which is fine and dandy until one grabs a history book to find out that both the U.S. and the Soviets supported Iraq (along with the French, the Germans and pretty much the rest of the West bar israel), while Iran was seen as a menace by the USSR (who feared muslim-fueled fervour would seep into its own asiatic republics) and supported by the U.S. even during the 80s (via the Iran-Contra arms traffick which resulted in the Irangate scandal).
- The second act of Diablo II takes place in Aranoch, a fantasy medieval version of the Middle East.
- Since Earthbound is an Affectionate Parody of American culture, one of the towns is built entirely on the Hollywood view of the Middle East: Scaraba! Complete with Kebab, snake merchants, and a short walk to the pyramids.
Western Animation
- Naturally, Agrabah in Disney's Aladdin is an Arabian Nights version of this trope. Doubly so as when the show was released in other countries, the writers were careful about name and design choices to not potentially offend anyone.
- Well, except for the lyrics in the opening song. Disney removed the reference to mutilation as a criminal punishment, but left in the line "It's barbaric, but hey, it's home." Despite Agrabah very clearly being a civilized monarchy.
- One where people occasionally get their hands chopped off.
- Like the female lead, had the hero been a second too late.
- In the source material, the story of Aladdin is set specifically in China. But since it's an Arabic folktale, and everyone in the story has Arabic names (the original storytellers presumably not being too familiar with the actual China), Disney moved it to Qurac.
- Transformers had the fictional state of "Carbomya" (as in "Car-bomb you"... yeah, and it just gets worse) stand in for then-newsworthy Libya. The country's main resources are oil and camels, its people frequently swear on the lives of their mother's livestock, and it's ruled by a paranoid, egotistical dictator. The degree of racial/ethnic stereotyping in this case was so extreme that Casey Kasem, who is of Middle-Eastern descent, quit the voice cast in disgust. This caused Kasem's most prominent character, Autobot computer Teletraan I, to be replaced by the more advanced, visually identical, and different sounding Teletraan II. (A computer Jonas Quinn).
- The Movie (2007) was much nicer about it: Scorponok's attack was ended by a phone call to a nearby base from a little town in Qatar.
- Although residents of this town are randomly armed. I laughed when a man pulled a rocket launcher out of his hut...
- Stewie and Brian once accidentally ended up in a version of Qurac in Family Guy.
- On The Venture Brothers, the space station Gargantua-1 landed in "Iranistan". It crashed straight into a secret hideout where all the world's terrorist leaders were meeting.
- Inspector Gadget featured several fictional Middle Eastern countries; Alpacastan, Pianostan, etc.
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